Cautionary Tales For Children
Wonderful witty poems great for reading to your children. The stories and rhymes will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Research has shown how important YOU are to your children and how as a dad the things you do, and keep on doing, really count, whether you live with them, or you are a single dad and are only able see them once a month, once a week or more, what you do really matters. This site is dedicated to all dads but will be of special relevance to the single dad. Remember, you are half the reason your children exist and they need you whether you live with them or not. As their dad, you have what it takes to make their lives successful and fulfilling no matter how often you see them. This site is about all the positive things that we as parents have to offer our children.

Feather Quills

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Easy to make, real writing, Magical Feather Quills

If you want a quill like the one Harry Potter and his Professors of Magic use, now you don’t have to buy an owl, catch a hippogryph or sneak up on a phoenix, all you need is right here on dadcando. This project won’t take you much more than 20 or 30 minutes and you’ll be able to say (as they always do) that no creatures were harmed in the making of your quill (mythical or otherwise).. . .
Download, print out and follow these instructions which will show you how to make any of the quills. You will need one set of instructions and then one template printable for each quill you want to make. The instructions and all the template printables are available in both A4 and US Letter size downloads just click on the one you need to download it.

Feather quill instructions

Phoenix Feather Quill template printable

The Phoenix is a sacred firebird bird with beautiful gold and red plumage. It lives for 500 years but before it dies, it builds itself a nest of cinnamon twigs and sets fire to them so that both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix arises. The Phoenix is able to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible. As you’ll probably already know, phoenix tears can heal wounds.. . .
What you write with your phoenix feather quill should be fiery and true, because you never know; your words might live on forever.

Snowy Owl Feather Quill printable template

The Snowy Owl, just like Harry’s Hedwig, (Bubo scandiacus) is a large owl of the owl family Strigidae. The adult male is virtually pure white, but females and young birds have some dark scalloping; the young are heavily barred, and dark spotting may even predominate. Its thick plumage, heavily-feathered feet, and coloration render the Snowy Owl well-adapted for life north of the Arctic Circle.. . .
The Snowy Owl is a particularly powerful and nomadic bird, used to flying long distance and settling in a range of habitats, hence it’s suitability for carrying post and messages for all types of magical folk. . . .
When writing with an Owl Feather Quill, your writing should be intelligent, honest and true, because an owl always knows where it is going.

Hippogryph Feather Quill printable template

When Mare and Griffin meet and mate
Their offspring share a curious fate.
One half is Horse with hooves and tail,
The rest is Eagle, claws and nail.

According to Thomas Bulfinch's Legends of Charlemagne, the Hippogryph is a strange beast indeed: Like a griffin, it has the head of an eagle, claws armed with talons, and wings covered with feathers, but the rest of its body is that of a horse. It is a very rare creature, as it is the product of the union between a griffin and a horse, and as everyone knows, the griffin regards horses as prey. The Hippogryph is able to fly as fast as lightening but is easier to tame than a griffin, making it suitable as both a steed and a pet.. . .
When writing with this quill, approach your text with respect, while you may scribble as fast as lightening, with a Hippogryph Feather Quill the pen truly is mightier than the sword.

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We can't wait to see the pictures of what you’ve made. Kids love it when the things you made together are published, so go on upload a picture of what you made. It's easy, just go to your dadcando My Page and upload your pictures into this project and we'll put one of them right here in the project picture gallery.

To give you the higest quality and the shortest download time, most of our downloads are supplied in Adobe PDF format for your convenience. Adobe Reader is standard on most computers, but if you do not have it, you can get the most up to date version free from Adobe, here.

Your downloaded projects

Posted by tuskel - Although I love the phoenix feather quill, printer ink is very expensive, so I decided to make a few Hedwig quills. :) So I used just white paper, and drew the feather on freehand. Originally, I made two of them, red and blue, but one got lost the very next day. I also tried to cut the little fluffy strands feathers have near the bottom, but paper isn't very durable, and being right where you would have to hold on, they have got quite crumpled.

Posted by Gaddian - I did something a little different with mine. Out of cardboard I cut one piece in the shape of a feather, and after designing and painting it just how I wanted, I attached the pen and wire to the cardboard with some glue. I put the pen into a straw which was painted gold to match the rest of the feather, and it gave it some grip.

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Wizardry and Magic

Harry Potter is all done. Of course there are rumours of an eighth book and the fact that we still have two films to go (as the last film will be split into two). It's going to be a long summer, but November will come round soon enough and the bitter sweet joy of seeing another HP film will be tempered by the fact that there is definitely only one more after that. Nevertheless, while you wait, there’s always more than enough magic in the air for you to recreate events at Hogwarts, the Burrow or the Ministry of Magic, by making your own models of Hogwarts wizarding paraphernalia.
Homemade wizard’s wands, Golden Snitches, or beautiful writing quills and loads of other Potteresk things are all here, ready for you to download on dadcando.

Even if you’re just a muggle and have had enough of Harry Potter, there are plenty of other magical fantasy stories to keep you interested in the Magical Art of Making. All the Chronicles of Narnia are all being turned into films, as are the stories of Lyra in the books of His Dark Materials trilogy. Whenever we see interesting things in these films and stories, we will bring you them as best magical fantasy craft projects, so that you can turn your hand to making magic, and conjuring up some really cool stuff to amaze your friends.

Now you can make your very own Victorian Domed glass display case, from a 2 litre soda bottle, to display all your favourite projects and artifacts really beautifully. With our simple instructions, the results of just an afternoon's making will be really cool, good enough to be film props in fact, and better than anything you can buy, because you made it yourself.

Or why not make a beautiful writing quill from either a hippogryph, phoenix or snowy owl feather . And because no quill would be complete without its own ink pot, there are also some easy to follow instructions and printables, for making the most fantastical, magical Ink-pots.

Featured Project

MicroCards
MicroCards are
miniature playing cards that can be printed out on one sheet of paper.
Just cut them out and play on the go!